RecordCouncil | Xanadu Product Reel Fragments [35mm] @RecordCouncil | Uploaded March 2021 | Updated October 2024, 5 hours ago.
The Xanadu Product Reel was a promotional tool comprising of various scenes from the film in a 22 minute package. It was shown during marketing events leading up to the release of the movie. Because the film was still in production at this time, there were notable differences to scenes in the reel and the final release of the film, most notably the soundtrack.

How fragments of it came to be in the store room of a cinema in Australia is a mystery. I am assuming that promotional screenings were carried out here at some point and the print was simply never returned.

I worked as a projectionist around 2008, not in a multiplex but rather an older single screen from the 30's that had been converted into 3 cinemas. One day while cleaning out a store room I came upon some film cans. Unwinding the films I immediately recognised the source. I pulled all the pieces from Xanadu out and spliced them together. It seems that at some point a projectionist in the past had taken the full reel and used it for scrap leader, some of it was even painted over, you can see some of it in a scene near the end. Sad.

3 and a bit minutes was all I ever recovered. I have uploaded the whole frame scan in this version essentially raw with only minor cropping as well locking the image to the sprocket holes. I will try and do some colour and general image improvement and crop for a separate upload.

This actually gives a good example of some of the problems I have with film registration. Have a look at the sprocket holes during the clip, they are dead on, digitally locked to a point in the video frame. Now look at the picture within the film, it weaves and bobs independent of the physical film, this is why getting a steady scan is so hard. This is especially noticeable during the close-ups in the I'm Alive sequence 0:45 You can try track to something in the actual image area if there is one, but it needs to be done for each and every scene of a scan.